Clad electrical contacts



g- 23, 1966 J. c. LA PLANTE ETAL 3,268,701

CLAD ELECTRICAL CONTACTS Filed April 22, 1964 FIG 2 PRIOR ART FIG 3 Fl G 4 Q WM o 3,268,701 P Patented August'23, 1966 3,268,701 CLAD ELECTRICAL CONTACTS Jerry C. La Plante, Bayside, N.Y., and Gilbert J. Landry, West Caldwell, N.J., assignors to Alloys Unlimited Inc., Long Island City,-N.Y., a corporation of New York Filed Apr. 22, 1064, Ser. No. 361,821 1 Claim. (Cl. 200-166) This invention relates to means and methods of making electrical contacts.

Electrical contacts are generally made by mechanically connecting, welding, or brazing a contact button of low resistance onto a spring member which is usually beryllium-copper, phosphorus-bronze, nickel-silver, or similar material. The contact button is generally copper, gold, silver, platinum, alloys of these, or other low resistance materials. These buttons are generally mechanically connected to the spring material by riveting or staking, or are welded to the spring material by discharge welding of some sort, or are brazed to spring material by use of a soft or hard solder. These processes involve hand labor and are tedious and expensive. It is often diflicult to make a good connection between the contact button and the spring member particularly when staking, riveting, or welding. 1

The present invention provides means and methods to utilizing bonded contact materials which are attached to the spring material in strip form as inlays or overlays. The contact is then stamped or in some fashion formed from the clad strip material, thus producing a spring member with a contact already attached. The clad materials used are metallurgically bonded to the spring, consequently do not have the disadvantages of mechanically bonded or welded items.

Accordingly, a principal object of the invention is to provide a new and improved type of electrical contact in a spring member combination.

Another object of the invention is to provide new and improved electrical contacts.

Another object of the invention is to provide new and improved electrical contacts in spring member combinations by using bonded contact material.

Another object of the invention is to provide new and improved means and methods for making electrical contacts which eliminate the riveting, staking, welding or brazing the contact buttons on the base metal strip.

Another object of the invention is to provide new and improved contact means wherein the resistance material is bonded to and inlaid in the base strip.

Another object of the invention is to provide new and improved electrical contact means wherein the contact materials is overlaid and bonded onto the base strip.

These and other objects of the invention will be apparent from the following specification and drawings of which:

FIGURE 1 is a side view of the prior art, partly in section.

FIGURE 2 is another side view of the prior art, partly in section.

FIGURE 3 is another side view of the prior art, partly in section.

FIGURE 4 is a side view of an embodiment of the invention.

FIGURE 5 is a side view of another embodiment of the invention.

FIGURE 6 is a side view of another embodiment of the invention.

FIGURE 7 is a plan view of FIGURE 4 of the inventron.

"sides of the'blade B1.

FIGURE 3 shows a contact material A2 welded in conventional manner onto a blade B2. Attaching contacts as in the manner of FIGURES 1' through 3- requires producing a' contact in a separate operation and attaching them I in a separate operation.

FIGURES 4, 5, and 6, show three possible methods according to the present invention of utilizing inlaid spring material to produce contacts similar to those attached in secondary operations.

FIGURE 7 shows a plan view of FIGURE 4.

The first step of this invention is to produce clad beryllium-copper or equivalent by some method known in the art, as for instance, the method of bonding secondary materials to beryllium-copper as embodied in my copending application, Serial No. 367,878 entitled: Methods of Bonding Secondary Materials to Beryllium-Copper, filed May 15, 1964, or methods such as that of Sidney Siege] in Patent No. 2,767,467, granted October 23, 1956 or as shown in Patent No. 2,860,409 by Boessenkool, Easton, Durst, and Siegel, or produced by methods as in Patent No. 2,834,102 by Pflumm and Rogers or similar and other methods known to the trade.

This material is then fabricated using a standard method such as stamping, press-forming, force slide forming, etc., to produce a blade member with the clad portion formed up by dimpling, bending, or rolling or some such similar operation so as to effectively raise the clad portion above the plane of the blade itself and thereby produce an object usable in the fashion of the prior art as shown in FIGURES 1 through 3.

FIGURE 4 specifically shows contact material 1 raised on one surface to produce a finger contact on blade 2 which may be of beryllium-copper or other material.

In making the contacts according to this method, a solid sheet of material 2 is first clad with the contact material 1 by any of the methods mentioned in the above which provide bonded on inlaid material 1 on the sheet 2.

The sheet is then formed in the area of the contact material to project the contact material above the blade of the base sheet. This may be done with a stamping die which dimples or forms a V-cross section in the area of the contact material or the sheet may be rolled through a forming device.

The sheet is then stamped to form the individual contact blades 10, 11, 12, and so forth and is preferably perforated along the lines C-C so that the blade may be easily snapped ofl? the sheet 2. The contact materials may be copper, silver, platinum or any material that may be bonded onto the blade.

Mounting holes 13, 14 and so forth are preferably stamped in the sheet at the same time that the blade members are stamped out.

[FIGURE 5 specifically shows bonded contact materials 3, 4, on blade 5 rolled over to produce a double contact usable in either direction as previously made per FIG- URE 2.

FIGURE 6 shows another arrangement or contact materials 6, 6', 7, 7' on blade 8. In this embodiment the end of blade 8 is first clad, then split and formed to the desired shape.

By use of clad material produced, as for example, by the previously listed methods, either a metallurgical or a soundly soldered bond is guaranteed between the contact material and the blade material as opposed to a mechanical or welded bond as produced by the prior art.

3 4 This invention also eliminates the necessity of attaehsaid base strip in either direction to form multiple ing contacts as secondary and tertiary operations. It is contact points, therefore possible to produce a blade member with a contacit}I at a redttged cost. be d b h h d References Cited by theExaminer any mo i cations may ma e y t ose'w o esire 5 to practice the invention without departing from the scope UNITED STATES PATENTS thereof which is defined by the following claim. 2,458,552 Blatmel' 29 155'55 W l i 2,754,393 7/ 1956 Clair 200166 An electrical contact comprising, 3,034,202 5/ 1962 Graves 200166 X a base strip composed of the alloy firom the group con- 10 sisting of berylliumacopper, phosphorusabonze, and ROBERT SCHAE'FER, U Exammert KATHLEEN H. CLAiF-FY, ROBERT s. MACON,

a strip of contact material inlaid 1n and bonded to said Examiners base adjacent one edge thereof, said edge being split,

said contact surface being raised out of the plane of 15 JONES Assistant Exammer' 

